Scotland’s Referendum isn’t ours to win – it’s ours to lose.
If you hope Scotland will get a YES vote – you are on the wrong message. You must EXPECT Scotland to get a YES vote.
How can I justify this bold statement?
Winners, feel like winners, look like winner, act like winners and become winners. Of course, the converse is also true. The first Board meeting I attended was terrifying. I sat next to the Finance Director. At the first break, he leaned over to me and said, ‘if you want to know how it’s going, look around the table and see who is ‘feeling the pain’.
I never forgot that, but with this knowledge, I also realised this could play out like a game of poker – if you know the rules.
Put simply, in Scotland’s Referendum, who is feeling the pain?
The YES camp are sometimes angry, frustrated and disappointed at the behaviour of Better Together. However, these are not the signs of pain – you must look at the Better Together camp for the signs of pain.
What I am saying is that a key step in winning is thinking and acting like a winner.
Now, I am not giving the game away to the Better Together campaign, because there is another vital step and that is that you must also be a credible winner. Being, a credible winner is never a guarantee of winning. How many people have walked away, losers, when they knew they should have won? In American sport, they call this Positive Mental Attitude or PMA. They adopt this approach now across all aspects of their culture and behaviour.
Credibility, is the main reason why Better Together cannot win at the Referendum. I am not privy to their strategies but I, like many others, have observed their behaviour. You must ask yourself whether the Better Together campaign exhibits the behaviour of a group who believe they are winning or a group who are feeling the PAIN from knowing they are losing.
WHAT DOES THIS PAIN LOOK LIKE? Let’s be honest here. We have all lost at some time, probably many times. We would all love to be good losers. But, if the truth be told, few of us are.
What sort of behaviour do we exhibit when we know we are losing? Well, we accuse the other side of cheating, we say they are moving the goalposts. We tell them they cannot win and if they did it would be horrible for all of us, even them. We deny them information and play our cards very close to our chest. We tell them, they don’t really want to win. If none of these things work, we resort to insults, smears and all sorts of ‘dirty tricks’. In the extreme, we go around gathering allies to gang up on them and force them into submission. Of course, inside, we feel a lack of confidence and we resist any form of confrontation which may expose us.
If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that these are some of the behaviour traits we recognise in ourselves when we realise we are losing. At this time, some of you are smugly thinking to yourself that ‘I don’t know nothing’. You have even better and more effective strategies to turn a defeat into a victory.
If this sound all too familiar and you have observed these behaviours with the Better Together campaign, that is because you are observing a group who expect to lose.
We have all heard or read of examples where people are defecting to the YES camp. Again, that is typical of the losing side as more and more people begin to lose their nerve. They want to be on the winning side, or rather they don’t want to be on the losing side.
How many examples have we heard about where people are defecting from YES to NO? Again, this shines a light on who will be the ultimate winner.
Perhaps, by now you are thinking, why do I bother to write this piece. If YES is so right and NO is so wrong, surely it’s a foregone conclusion?
That is precisely the point. Any salesman will tell you that the real skill in selling is ‘pulling it over the line’. Some call it ‘closing the sale’.
This is my key message. Despite my belief in the merit, justice or apparent inevitability of the YES campaign, we must ‘pull it over the line’. IT IS OURS TO LOSE.
If the YES campaign has merit, and it has in abundance, we still need this ‘winner’s’ persona to achieve our ambition. On the other hand, if you exhibit a ‘loser’s’ persona, as is the case with Better Together, then almost regardless of the merit of your case, it would be extremely difficult or near impossible to succeed.
Remember, after winning WW2 Winston Churchill must have thought he was a ‘slam dunk’ in the 1945 general election. Clement Attlee swept to victory with a landslide 159 seat majority. So much for ‘bankers’.
So the message is clear. We must fight with the attitude and belief of a winner right up to the last vote. Of course, this could all be cliched if I did not explain in more detail this ‘loser’s’ persona exhibited by the Better Together campaign.
Over the coming weeks I am confident that I will add to this list because I see no reason why Better Together will alter their strategy; after all they did not become negative, they began negative. So here are a few examples:
HERE COMES THE FIRST SIGNS OF PAIN: Within days of launching Better Together the media had branded their campaign ‘Project Fear’. They hardly reacted. I think they were happy for the attention and recognition that they were ‘on the warpath’.
PLAYING OUT THE PAIN: (and this is just a small sample)
The lack of confidence – David Cameron likes to see himself as a man of the people, a family man, a believer in the Big Society. Here is a man who is not afraid of confrontation? Well, actually, no. Cameron refuses point blank to debate publicly with Alex Salmond. He offers the lame excuse that it is not his position as he has no vote in the referendum. That is pathetic. He is the Prime Minister of the UK and when Scotland gains its independence on 18 Sep 2014 this will be the biggest impact on the ‘norm’ a UK Government has had to face since WW2.
The truth is, he knows he is a very rich, posh boy and he thinks Scots have a thing about posh – like there’s no posh in Scotland. He knows that he does not have a credible argument to offer the Scottish people other than a bunch of cliches, like ‘stronger together, weaker apart’. Tell that one to the USSR? Basically, Cameron has a total lack of confidence in any debate with Alex Salmond. Of course, he may be able to win a debate with one of Alex Salmond’s underlings – but he wouldn’t do that because, HE is the Prime Minister. However, he expects Alex Salmond to do this despite being the First Minister.
The deception – Standard Life consider moving their operations out of Scotland in the event that Scotland becomes an Independent country. I didn’t flinch. When there is the potential for a major change event, every responsible business must consider their options. This is normal business, we do it all the time. It is Business Continuity Planning. It is acting with diligence. I would have been horrified if the headline was Standard Life not even thinking about the Referendum – now that would have been a shocker.
Every business and organisation in the world carried out massive risk audits, upgrades and contingency planning in preparation for Y2K. The world survived because we did the due diligence and Standard Life will continue to trade in Scotland when it becomes an independent country. Footnote: Bankers get huge bonuses to keep them in the country because the good ones are in short supply – do we really believe that Standard Life could move to London and re-staff from the nearest Job Centre Plus – that’ll be a No.
More deception – George Osborne and Danny Alexander state categorically that an independent Scotland would not be allowed to share the pound. They clearly see this as a game changer and miss no opportunity to hammer home this message. What utter tripe! First of all, they concede that we currently share the currency, so why do we not have a say in it’s future while we are still in the Union?
More importantly, the pound Sterling is an international currency – we simply chose to use it just as we could chose to use the dollar or the Yen or even, yes, the Euro. Of course, we would not have a ‘say’ in the currency – as if we have a say at present. We were not even consulted on its future beyond the referendum – just to make the point chrystal clear. On numerous times I have put a question out there asking what happens if we simply chose to continue to use the pound – this has never been answered.
For example, Greece share the Euro but have no control over the currency and got themselves into serious trouble. If they had their own currency they could have devalued – same as we did in 1967 under Harold Wilson.
So the other side of the coin, if you’ll pardon the pun, is that your currency, under sharing, may be tied to a larger and more powerful party e.g. Germany. What this means is that currency sharing is not a panacea. An independent Scotland could simply share the pound and over time assess whether to remain with this or issue their own currency.
Unlike Greece, Scotland has been the intelligence behind much of the worlds banking – although granted, we got into a big mess, possibly due to poor regulation. Highly unlikely to repeat that mistake, especially if you have your own hand on the ’tiller’.
With Independence, Australia used the pound for more than 50 years before reverting to the dollar following decimalisation. Canada, also used the pound after independence and Ireland continued to use the pound from 1916 though 1922. This is not an issue. In my country of birth, Belgium, you could use any currency you wanted. Walk into a sweet shop in Antwerp and the kid behind the counter would take your pound, dollar, franc, mark your krona – probably even take your watch and give you change in yen if you wished.
This is simply not an issue. What do people imagine will happen if we continued to use the pound. It has been suggested that if Scotland had to bail out RBS again for example, they would not be able to do it. Guess what, we are not going to see banks failing again and in any event Scotland could have bailed them out – however, they would not have allowed them to get into such a mess in the first place – that was thanks in no small part to the Regulator, with a bit of a nudge from the Chancellor, at the time. If you read my earlier blog on Brown you may not be too surprised at the failure!
Even more deception – Then there was the issue of membership of the EU. First of all, let me say, a lot of this rhetoric revolves around the SNP White Paper and the SNP policy for an Independent Scotland. These matters will be decided by the government of Free Scotland after the 2016 election.
I personally have no wish to remain in Europe for reasons that are not for this blog. However, if Scotland wished to remain in the EU can we honestly see the EU sending us to the back of the queue with our application form.
This is too silly to be even remotely credible. Greece lied to gain entry to the EU and bankrupted their country on debt. They were not kicked out of the EU, they got a massive bailout and continue as normal and they are no longer news. The EU are desperate to retain every member at all costs.
Are they about to kick out Scotland who have been members for 40 years, hold the main the nuclear defense capability for the Western world, have 25% of the European renewable energy, most of the European fishing stock, and on, and on, and all on the say so of Barrosa, who is on his way out and has a serious un-hidden agenda with Catalan going for Independence.
With regards Trident and Faslane, which incidentally is my neighbour, I do not hold with SNP on this one. Remember also this would be a decision for a Scottish Government that may not be SNP. Trident can only be based at Faslane – there is no realistic alternative site and moving it would take many years. I see this as the biggest bargaining chip EVER.
We could remove the war-heads to a safer place and develop the response time to re-arm if a real threat was on the horizon. We have already in place a system of ‘alert status’ that would act as a trigger.
Now some say they are opposed to weapons of mass destruction at all costs. I agree, but while nations like Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons we must counter balance that potential. If we unilaterally disarm, do we honestly see North Korea following our lead?
Finally, on that point, there are far worse weapons of mass destruction than nuclear, e.g. chemical warfare. We don’t hear much about that potential – they just feed us a diet of ‘big boys toys’.
Remember the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami wiped out more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki together and in a shorter time. Maybe a trite point but is was nuclear weapons that brought an end to a war that had already killed over 60 million people.
Under ‘even more deception’ we could mention the issue of RBS and their threats to move their 11,000 ish jobs out of Scotland to London. RBS are 84% owned by UK taxpayers. Who acts on behalf of UK taxpayers, yes, Westminster. I think we can leave that one for now.
Ganging Up – How about Westminster recruiting their gang. I mean the BBC and the CBI to name but two. The irony of scare stories is that the public must get to know them or they don’t work.
Normally, the government do their dirty business in private, behind closed doors with subterfuge and deceit. Not on this occasion. They must have considered a scare story which nobody knows about – hmm.
Of course, we now see these two antagonist crumbling under the weight of social media. First we saw a mass exodus from the CBI by none other than the BBC and STV. Then, remarkably, the CBI withdrew from the Better Together campaign claiming they had advice from a QC and ‘Fez’d’ up to an honest mistake. There is no such thing as an honest mistake, a mistake is a mistake. The big question is why an important organisation such as the CBI made such a fundamental mistake over a matter as important is the quest for freedom of a country. The answer is simple, it was not a mistake it was a huge mis-judgement that created a social media storm.
More Ganging up – Trouble is, if you believe your own hype, you make mistakes. Recruiting Alistair Darling to head up the Better Together campaign was a stroke of genius – if it was suggested by the YES camp.
Darling Alistair is yesterday’s man – another Blair ‘darling’ who has failed to achieve recognition, almost certainly because he is tarnished by that ‘kiss of death’ they call Blair. Darling has the charisma of a HMRC inspector. If BT thought they were recruiting a ‘big hitter’ – that ranks up there with Aly MacLeod as Scotland manager and his tartan army from 1978 – I understand some supporters have yet to return home from Argentina.
Even more ganging up – You couldn’t make it up. Apparently Cameron has been trying to recruit Putin in his attempts to thwart Alex Salmond and Scottish Independence. Can you imagine Cameron trying to sell the concept of Better Together to Putin? one word USSR!
If there was any truth in this story Alex Salmond would be more than justified in calling in UN Observers for the referendum since Cameron has taken his bully boy tactics on to the world stage. Actually, I find this extremely embarrassing? I wonder if he started ‘bubblin’ – take the shame!
Pulling out the big guns – Cameron decide to replace Michael Moore MP as Scottish Secretary with Alistair Carmichael MP. So now we have swapped a mainland Liberal MP for an Orkney & Shetlands Liberal MP. Aside from choosing a Liberal MP, although there is only one Tory, but is Orkney and Shetlands a true representation of Scotland when Edinburgh is the capital city and Glasgow, once the second City of the largest empire in the world, is by far the largest city in Scotland. Ironically, the Islands may be interested in going for independence for themselves. As a group of island communities very different from the mainland I see the sense in that and suspect that independence may work for them regardless of the referendum – let’s hope it’s not despite the referendum.
Pulling out the biggest gun of all – yes, you guessed, out pops the future Sir Gordon or Lord Brown. Have at a read at my blog, ‘Brown’d off’. I did some research on the man and could hardly believe what I was reading – and from impeccable sources. I firmly believe that Brown, in all his dillusions, believes Scotland will vote No and if he has been associated with their campaign, he is on for his knighthood or seat in the Lords.
I reckon that Gordon Brown is the most disrespect politician of all time. I believe he has done more damage to the UK and Scotland than any other person in history and he bankrolled his mate Blair on all his war mongering campaigns for which he may yet be called to account.
The Dirty Tricks – If you like a good old conspiracy theory have a read at my blog on Murdoch, where I ask if he was a target. Remember, it all went to racket for Murdoch about 2 months after declaring his support for Scottish Independence. And don’t let’s forget, Murdoch put Thatcher, Blair and Cameron in number 10, he could just as easy guarantee an Independent Scotland.
More Lack of Confidence – Finally, I did a blog some time ago contrasting social media and traditional media. I am proud to say that my pitch was right on the money. Scotland’s referendum is a battle between social media and traditional media. Here’s my current take, as this fits nicely into the persona of a loser and their lack of confidence.
The main difference between tradition media and social media is this; traditional media ‘broadcasts’ messages. Conversely, social media opens an immediate ‘dialogue’.
When traditional media broadcast a message what redress do we have – almost none. We can write a letter, what a waste of time. We can complain to the Press Complaints Commission and, if successful, get an apology or retraction, ‘buried’ in a later edition. Just look at the revelations of Leveson.
But the real issue with traditional media is control. Who controls tradition media – certainly NOT THE PUBLIC. This is an open channel for manipulation of the public. However, people are fully aware of this now and turn to social media in their droves.
Contrast this with social media. The biggest player, as far as debate is concerned, is certainly Twitter. In this we are all equal. Twitter is the first tool of choice by everyone, world leaders especially, to get their message out quickly. I could tweet Barrack Obama and tell him to get his nose out of Ukraine, I could tweet Putin and tell him to stop being a bully. Try sending this to a national paper and expecting to get this on the front page?
Of course the minute I make a statement on Twitter, anyone anywhere can come back at me with comment, insult, just about anything .. and so it goes on. This has been accepted worldwide as the communication medium of the ‘now’ and the ‘future’.
Anyone who doubts this, just has to ask Obama how he became president – social media. Anybody who doubts the power of social media is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Now apply this to Scotland’s referendum. 99% of the comment on the referendum is coming from the YES camp. The NO camp has almost no presence at all. I am not saying that all the comments and dialogues are of the highest possible quality, there is a ton of crap out there but there is a hundred ton of great stuff – but more especially it is extremely good natured and often side-splittingly funny. if someone is getting bullied there are hundreds or thousands of tweeters out there to strike a balance and ensure fair play – unless of course you are a complete pr*ck, and there are a few, in which case you’re on your own, mate.
In my short experience I have had a few NO campaigners responding with cliches such as ‘we’re much better together’ but they never state specifics and they almost always revert to insults. For my part, I don’t really want fellow tweeters to agree with me. I would trade 100 of them for 1 guy who asks a specific question that is troubling him or her – that’s what wins votes!
But here’s the thing – this is where the battle of the referendum is being fought out. Up to now it is all about YES. But we must not be complacent and we MUST treat NO campaigners with respect, listen to their views and answer them with honesty and integrity –
WE ARE ALL SCOTS AND AFTER THE REFERENDUM WE ALL HAVE TO LIVE TOGETHER AND GROW TOGETHER.